Sunday, September 30, 2012

I had some free time today and I happened to notice the last sports card show of the month around here was going on this weekend, so I decided to head on down to the Gibraltar Trade Center show once again this afternoon. The last time I went was back in July, so I was hoping the recurring dealers would have some new stuff to sort through.

This haul is all about my side projects as I wasn't able to find anything from my main PC projects. I ended up with a bunch of singles and one boxful of cards. Here's the rundown for how I spent $14 (I know, pretty sad right?) at the show this time around:

Again, not overly impressive, but still something to show. I wish I could come home with more every time I go, but it's hard to just buy something for the sake of spending money nowadays. When I was younger, I had no problem going to a show and blowing $100 on random sealed boxes, but that was before i had any kind of focus in my collection.

Now I go into these shows each time with a pretty small list of things to look for, although my side projects (Goaltending Gallimaufry, Captured on Cardboard, and My Picks) keep me looking through every dime and quarter box I can find, which is actually the best part about going to shows anymore.

I'll be putting together several posts to cover this haul, so stay tuned...

Monday, September 24, 2012

Let me start by saying I love this hobby. There are so many great people in and around it, especially when it comes to being part of the blogosphere. Thanks to starting this blog, I've gotten back into collecting and found a great group of fellow hockey card bloggers.

Today's Super Script post is brought to you by Brett over at My Hockey Card Obsession. He's helped me out in the past with this set, several times actually, but this one definitely came as a surprise. I found a bubble mailer in the mailbox today and inside was this:

Awesome! Another Super Script for the collection, plus this one adds another team to the project, even more awesome. This will be the 37th one I've been able to knock off the want list. I've been making excellent progress on these this year, this will be 15th now.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Seems like forever now since I've done one of these. I guess that's what happens when I have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning without any new mail to share. Actually, the last one of these was all the way back in May of this year. Man, time flies doesn't it?

Anyway, one of bamlinden's recent posts over at My Hockey Card Obsession got me thinking about some more creative ideas for collecting projects. Going through a stack of cards in my desk today, I came across one that I think would make for another cool project.

Now there's something that you don't see on most cards, although I'm sure you could make quite a collection out of these if you actually took the time and looked hard enough. Just flipping through my binders I came across several of these, both goalies getting sprayed and players just stopping.

If I didn't already have my Goaltending Gallimaufry project going, I would definitely like to get this one going. Like any project of this kind, it gives you a reason to actually care about and look for base cards in a world where a lot of people just throw away their base cards.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Lately it seems like I've been getting stuff for my various PC projects in bunches. I say that because to go with yesterdays Super Script update, I also have a Gold Script to share. They both came in the mail the same day, but I like to stick to my one post per day limit.

This one also came from eBay and only set me back $0.99 plus shipping, which definitely isn't all that bad. I mean it does kind of suck that shipping costs more than the actual card, but hey that's just the way things are nowadays.

Here's a look at my Dimitri Mironov Gold Script numbered 096/100:

This is the 49th Gold Script I've been able to come up with towards the 220 card set. That just about the 25% mark. This will be the second Capitals Gold Script along with the Peter Bondra I already have.

Friday, September 21, 2012

I would have gotten to this post yesterday if my roller hockey team hadn't made it to the championship game, which we somehow managed to win. Even if it is a men's rec league, nothing beats winning like we did. After a first round bye, we played the semi-final game at 6:00 and won 10-0, which set up the finals at 8:30. After a lot of back and forth, we came out on top 9-7 with a pair of late goals. Fun stuff...

Anyway, onto today's show and tell. As you can tell from the title, its another addition to my Super Script set. This one again comes from eBay and I will say I paid a bit more than I thought I would have to, but hey stuff happens, right?

Here's a look at my Jan Hlavac Super Script numbered 20/25:

This one brings the set total to 36 out of 220. Another plus is that this adds another team to the mix of Super Scripts. Maybe that should be a goal for this set, to get at least one of every team before trying to get all 220 of them. What do you guys think?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Time for a little more Patrik Stefan show and tell. These next four cards are the last of several eBay purchases I made during a recent streak for this project. I've got two autos and two serial-numbered inserts, one of which is numbered to just 25 copies.

The first was this auto from 1999-00 Topps Premier Plus, specifically the Signing Bonus set. Clever name, right? Anyway, this one is a really nice looking card, plus this is probably the nicest signature I have of his so far. The others are all nothing more than chicken scratch at best. This one you can actually make out the "P" from Patrik and his #13 at the end.

Next is one of the chicken scratch autos I was talking about. It's the silver version signature card from 1999-00 BAP Millennium Signature Series. I love the look of the cards from this set, especially some of the colored parallels. Interesting fact: apparently this was Stefan's "first signature card" according to the text on the back.

Now it's time for the inserts. The first one is this Future Greats from 2001-02 SP Authentic. It's numbered to just 3500 copies. Kind of reminds you of the inserts of the mid-90's doesn't it? One thing I like about this one is the blur effect around the player image. It adds a little something to an otherwise boring plain white background.

The next one is pretty similar to the last one. It's the SP Limited Gold version of the same card, this time numbered to just 25 copies. I've never seen the "regular" version of this set before, let alone the gold parallel version of it. And come to find out, there's another version in between that's numbered to 150 copies. Now I have a rainbow to complete.

So that's it for the recent Stefan kick that I've been on. I never realized he had so many cards out there given how quickly he faded from the hyped 1st overall pick to nothing more than a blooper reel highlight with his empty net flub in Dallas. Anyway, the best thing is how cheap this stuff is relative to something like my Howard collection.

Now I'm just on the lookout for anything that catches my eye with a decent price tag. There are a lot of cool inserts and parallels of his to be had, I just need to actually find them now.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Today I have something a bit different for my newly started Patrik Stefan PC: a trio of promo cards, or at least that's what I think you would consider them to be. I got all three in a lot on eBay a little while back for about $5 plus shipping.

The first was this one from Topps. It's directly based on the 1999-00 Topps base card design, but is different in that it has a silver border, where the regular cards all had a gold border. Click here to see one of those for reference.

This one is also numbered differently than the regular cards. Patrik's card in the regular Topps set is number 14, while this one is numbered ATL-PS.

The next one is a bit of a head scratcher. It looks exactly like the regular base version of the 1999-00 Pacific Paramount cards, but it has a different picture of Stefan than the "regular" versions I've seen. Click here to see one of these for reference.

I'm not sure on this one because the numbering on the back is the exact same as the "regular" cards, so the only difference is the picture you see above.

The last one is the best of the three, beacuse its not just a different version of another set. Well, I guess that's not 100% true, as it's strongly based on another Upper Deck set. Click here to see an example of 1999-00 MVP for reference.

So there you have it, a few "unique" pieces for my Stefan collection. I like the direction this project is going so far as most of his stuff is dirt cheap and I can get some really cool looking inserts and parallels from the early 2000's. Plus, it's always cool to find things like this for a player collection, am I right?

Friday, September 14, 2012

In my last post I showed off my latest Gold Script addition thanks to a trade over on Sports Card Forum. Well, that wasn't the only thing that I got out of the deal. I managed to sang five Silver Scripts for that portion of my master set project.

While these are not nearly as cool as the Gold and Super Scripts, they are still an important part of each base card rainbow. Without them there would be no rainbow, so I will continue to go after them and hopefully finish them off as soon as possible.

The first was this one featuring former Flyer Brian Boucher.

Then there was this one featuring former Flame Derek Morris.

The third one featured Chris Drury of the Colorado Avalanche.

Another goaltender, this time former Sabre Martin Biron.

Last but not least, we have former CHL prospect Kristian Kudroc of Quebec.

These five bring the Silver Script total to 131/220 and this part of the project beyond the halfway point. You would think these are easy to track down, and they are to some extent, but it never makes sense to get them unless I can combine a bunch like this into one deal.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

While eBay has been the primary method of acquiring cards for this project, every now and then I'm lucky enough to find someone with one who is willing to trade. That was the case with my latest pickup thanks to a fellow SCF member who offered it up as part of a multi-card trade. I'll have the rest of the loot posted here soon.

This one features former Montreal Canadien Sergei Zholtok, who tragically died during a game in 2004. This is from his Wikipedia page:

"During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Zholtok returned to Latvia and played for the Riga 2000 team in the Latvian national hockey championship and the Open Belarus hockey championship. On November 3, 2004, his cardiac arrhythmia resurfaced during the game between HK Riga 2000 and HC Dinamo Minsk.

Zholtok left the game with 5 minutes remaining, collapsing and dying
after returning to the dressing room in the arms of teammate Darby Hendrickson. An autopsy determined heart failure as the cause of death. This was not the first occurrence; in January 2003
he had to leave a game due to this arrhythmia, and had been observed in
a hospital overnight. He was allowed to return to play after missing
seven games."

Here's a look at the Zholtok Gold Script numbered 062/100.

This is the 48th Gold Script I've been able to land for the project now. I'd say that's a pretty good place to be given how old and rare these things are. That leaves me 172 left to complete the set, which seems pretty daunting, but I've got all the time in the world, so I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Lately my focus has been fading away from my Jimmy Howard collection. Maybe it's because of the increased competition or the sheer number of cards he has out there now, either way I haven't been really excited for any new release featuring Mr. Howard until now.

At this point I would be happy if I could just track down a base card, because I have yet to get a single one of any player since The Cup first came out in 2005-06. Beyond that, I know it would really hurt my wallet to go after any of the others, but sometimes you have to go for things like this, right?

The Dual Shield would be the one I want most. I'm not normally a fan of cards that feature multiple players, but in that case I could make an exception.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

One of the things I love about having a PC player from the early 2000's is the variety of cards that were out at the time. I've been doing daily searches on eBay for Stefan stuff and have come across a bunch of sets and subsets I've never even seen before. On the plus side, his stuff is dirt cheap compared to Jimmy Howard collection.

In these searches I came across a few things that I thought were great deals. The first comes from a pretty important set from back in the day when BAP was still around. It's a game-used stick card from the inaugural edition of Ultimate Memorabilia.

This is the only the second slabbed card I've added to my collection. They're pretty neat to have in the PC, but the one thing I don't like about them is that it's difficult to get a decent quality scan, unless there's something I'm missing. Any tips on scanning these suckers?

The other was this game-used stick card from 2001-02 Upper Deck MVP. It's got a plain wood grain stick piece, which is not all bad, but still not as cool as the Ultimate piece above.

That's it for today, two new additions to the memorabilia portion of my Patrik Stefan collection. I now actually have more game-used stick cards than game-used jersey cards of his, granted it's only a 2-to-1 count at this point. In case you were wondering, I paid $3 including shipping for the MVP and just $6 including shipping for the Ultimate.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

A few months ago I decided I would officially start going after all of the Pinnacle and BAP/ITG Mask cards as I had a decent start to the project already going thanks to some previous purchases. Since then I haven't really come across many great deals on these cards that were worth jumping on, until a few days ago.

I was doing one of my daily eBay searches and came across a Martin Gerber The Mask V card from Between The Pipes. It had a starting price of just $0.95 with free shipping. I threw up a bid for that amount and ended up winning at the end of the seven days. I figure if I can get one of these for $1 or less, I shouldn't pass it up.

Here's a look at card number M-22 from The Mask V set:

It's a great looking card and I think a good deal at just $0.95, would you agree? The only downside to the free shipping part of this auction was the dreaded PWE that the card came in. I guess when the seller doesn't charge for shipping, you can't really complain unless the card arrives damaged, which in this case it did not.

The funny thing is because the shipping was free, eBay does not let you give the seller any kind of rating for shipping. What do you guys think about that? Even if you don't pay for it, there is still a chance the card could be damaged no matter what way they ship it to you.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Time to show off a couple more things I was able to find at the Gibraltar show last weekend. I was hoping to maybe find a few Silver Scripts to knock off the wantlist, but that didn't happen. I did however end up coming across two cards I did still need for the insert portion of my MVP SC Edition master set project.

The first comes from the Game Used Souvenirs insert set. It's a game used stick card of Maxime Ouellet pictured with Quebec of the CHL. This is the third stick card I've been able to get from the set, the other two being Kris Beech and Milan Kraft.

The other card was this Brendan Shanahan from the Second Season Snipers insert set. I was surprised to find this one in a dime box knowing Shanny is pictured as a Red Wing and the show was in metro Detroit, but hey I'll take it. This gives me 6/12 for the set.

While I was hoping to do a bit more crossing off of the want list for this set at the show, I will take two cards over nothing at all. By my count, I now have 485 out of a possible 1014 cards for the master set I'm working on. That's just under the 50% mark.

Card Boarded (est. 2009)

With this hockey card blog I want to share my personal collection as well as track any new additions. I would also like to share my TTM successes, custom card designs, and my thoughts about this great hobby.